I once had a strange experience. At work, distracted, I caught sight of my reflection aged 35 and succumbed to a dizzying time-slip, whereby I saw myself at 25, 15, and quite possibly even 5: same dark hair, same pale face, same style of outfit. Now, approaching 53, I could doubtless do it looking forward to 60, 70. As Fanny describes herself in Nancy Mitford’s Love in A Cold Climate, I have proved 'a tremendous sticker'.
By most women’s standards, my look has been unusually stable. I have had a tan only once in my adult life, inter-railing aged 20, and felt unselfed, inauthentic. Tall for my age, I had size seven feet at seven, and was a size 12 at 12, where I stayed. I have worn my hair long from the age of three. At 17, I had layers put in – a novelty that felt seismic. And that’s it. I’ve never been blonde, never even had lowlights, never chopped it off, or indulged in a perm.
My makeup hasn’t evolved since I discovered blusher: pale pallor, sooty brows, pink cheeks. 'Do I look different?' I asked my sister a few years into writing about beauty, a world of transformations at my disposal. 'No,' she confirmed, 'just more expensive.' (Said sister used to change her hair colour between my greeting her at breakfast, then seeing her at school.)
Tried and true
My decision to stick rather than twist when it comes to my appearance isn’t conservative, but radical. I have a strong sense of personal taste – detest some things, adore others – and have never minded standing out from the crowd. I resisted Sun In at 14, just as I resist fake tan now, seeing no need to look like everyone else by way of blonding or bronzing. I’d rather resemble myself – that curious, slightly gothic entity that is Hannah Betts. Partly this stems from a sense that grooming works best when it works with nature rather than against it, partly from sheer inertia disguised as self-acceptance.
Former magazine editor Sam Baker, 57, presenter of the podcast The Shift and author of the book of the same name, has sported waist-length red locks since the age of 20, now faded gold. 'I had to learn to love my looks because they weren’t going anywhere and I started using my hair as my trademark accessory. It took until my forties to really bond with my appearance so I think that’s why I happily coexist with it now. Also, in truth, I’m lazy – low-maintenance in beauty speak.'
Culture tells non-movers that such constancy is a mistake. Every magazine I grew up reading – from early Eighties Jackie to my mother’s glam fashion magazines – counselled that forever updating clothes, hair, and cosmetics was the only way to stay young-looking: novelty equalling youth, and youth being all. Female loveliness is an impossible quest, a journey in which the goal is forever shifting, and if you’re not in fashion, then you must be out. Staying faithful to one look is 'ageing', clinging tragically to one’s youth, the dreaded 'mutton dressed as lamb'.
Star turns
And yet, Sam and I are not the only women to maintain something of a signature guise. When HBO brought Sex and the City’s Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda back in their mid-50s in And Just Like That, two of them boasted the same hairstyles as they had in their mid-30s, all three by the series’ end. Other celebrities keeping things consistent include the likes of Tilda Swinton, Michelle Yeoh, Jennifer Aniston, Sharon Stone, Penelope Cruz, Salma Hayek, Julia Roberts, Brooke Shields, Elizabeth Hurley, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Lopez .
In models such tenacity appears de rigueur, be it Jerry Hall and Iman, supers such as Cindy, Naomi, Christy and Helena, or the slightly more spring chickenish Kate Moss. But, then, even fashion maven Dame Anna Wintour retains an unwavering commitment to her bob, long frock and nude Manolos formula. Fellow Dame Joan Collins has been adopting the same fabulous Forties-meets-Eighties guise since her Dynasty days, once giving me a makeover that was pure Alexis. This, after all, is how icons are made. Her Majesty the Queen proved this; her grand-daughter-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge appearing to have taken note.
Doubtless, it helps that these women boasted fairly classic modes to begin with and all maintain a level of grooming that ensures their look is sustained with polish rather than looking weathered. 'A loving relationship with one’s colourist,' is how I've heard one well-known 'sticker' describe the process. I cannot be the only woman who would add a little judicious Botox into the equation, and my own loving relationship with Dr Michael Prager. While I should note that exercise is also invariably key to not resembling a melted version of one’s former self, I personally do none.
Beauty changemakers
But, however strategically we pull it off, we stalwarts lack the drama of the ever-morphing Cher, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and the assorted Kardashians. Here are individuals ceaselessly auditing and adapting their looks with an experimental fervour that makes teenagers seem tame - and admirably scant regard for what society deems age appropriate.
Others are clearly engaging with change for their own pleasure. Raven-haired Olivia Colman went blonde; brunette Dawn French, short and grey; Mary Greenwell, the makeup guru who gave Princess Diana her Vogue metamorphosis in 1990, has switched to a ravishing rose. 'I don’t have any limits,' she beams. 'I occupy a creative world and don’t have a husband saying: "Oh, my God!" Plus there’s so much energy to be had from embracing change. I walk down the street and people react.'
The contribution to one’s own gaiety, and the gaiety of nations, I do understand. My pal Anna Murphy, 52, fashion director of The Times, is a sworn new 'twister'. She tells me: 'To stick to what worked for you 20 years ago is to risk looking 20 years out-of-date, which is not how I want to look because I don’t want to be thought out-of-date in other ways. Straight-down-the-line classic can all too easily be confused for straight-down-the-line dull, and I never want to be tarred with that brush.'
Her flourishes include: 'A slimline hoodie under a tailored suit, chunky boots with a midi-dress, and pearls that have been tweaked to look definitively 21st century. A really popping lipstick such as MAC Relentlessly Red or Candy Yum-Yum, or some look-at-me eyeliner like Sisley Phyto-Eye Twist in Lagoon or Emerald give just enough edge.'
Dame Helen Mirren is the queen of shape-shifting. When I interviewed her, she was sporting operatic midnight blue eyeshadow, and about to shave her head for a film, having gone pink three years earlier. 'I think everyone should just grow their colour right out once in a while, cut their hair short, and re-look at the whole thing,' she informed me.
'People get frightened. They're terrified of shaking it up. I shake it up all the time. I have to for work, which is a very good lesson.' As for makeup, the L’Oréal poster woman relishes it for the perpetual new selves she can inhabit: 'I think we get stuck with a look. We forget that you can experiment. It's not the end of the world - you can always wipe it off again.'
Finding your style
Immutable as I can seem, I couldn’t agree more. My framework may remain the same, yet I am perpetually nano-tweaking. Micro changes they may be, but in the last year, I’ve re-thatched my lashes and brows with Revitalash. In the last week, I’ve rocked electric violet eyelids with daffodil fingernails. I encourage all women to invest in foundations of the latest high-tech texture, and my makeup collection is not only crammed with millennial pash Glossier, but zoomer crushes Glisten and Peacci.
Still, as I strolled past my neighbour Joanna Lumley this morning – straining not to gaze at her unchanging perfection – I wondered why anyone strives to fix what so resolutely ain’t broke. Joanna looked utterly herself - and utterly sensational for it. As YouTube beauty authority Nadine Baggott puts it: 'It’s not being stuck in a rut, it’s called finding your style.'
